I didn’t get diagnosed till age 51. But I was definitely having emotional dysregulation (“oversensitive”), problems with focus (“need to buckle down”) etc. as a kid.
I developed coping mechanisms that mostly involved reading constantly, never telling people what I was actually thinking about, and having extremely good manners so that authority figures gave me passes.
I also had an eating disorder, frequent insomnia and occasional breakdowns with suicidal thoughts.
I have meds now. It’s so so much better. But I’m still a weird little duck and always will be.
I also realized the other day that I just don’t have those “I don’t want to exist anymore!” thoughts I used to have that weren’t suicide ideation - there was no plan but the ideal of not existing - but were reflections of the emotional difficulty of my life pre-medication. It’s not enough to stop me from wanting to scream and jump out a window when forced to sit through a long meeting or something with no stimulus, but it has made things so much better.